


Make Our Walls Fall

by simplesetgo



Series: As Long as it Takes [3]
Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplesetgo/pseuds/simplesetgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kahlan says goodbye, but it's not the end. Part 3 of 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Our Walls Fall

She waits for things to become easier, like they did last time. She waits for thoughts of her to lessen as she takes refuge in daily routine, but months pass and memories stay raw and fresh. Those around her begin to ask her questions and she soon suspects that something is wrong with her. She takes to riding outside the city walls at night—even as the seasons begin to change and bitter air tears warmth from her skin, heavy winter clouds obscuring the moon and stars.

It is not until she realizes she’s straying further each time that she thinks something might need to be done. Because it would be too easy to make the choice she shouldn’t even have, to turn her mount in the wrong direction and just go to her. Because all Cara feels is cold, and she remembers the warmth of Kahlan’s presence, her embrace, all too clearly.

In the end, Richard has to order her. He doesn’t speak in jest very often these days, but when he tells her to go take care of whatever it is that’s bothering her and not come back until she has, she is unsure of whether to bow her head in salute.

“How long will it take?” he asks, as an afterthought. A command it is, then.

“Likely a lifetime,” Cara answers, and Richard smiles at her as if she’s not serious.

****

A rough-looking man, accompanied by a flustered porter, interrupts Kahlan’s visit with her sister late at night. “Apologies, Confessors—he claims it is a matter of life and death,” the porter offers, bowing out of the room. Kahlan remains seated while Dennee stands, brow furrowed.

“What is the purpose of such an interruption at such an hour?”

“I was told to give this, with a message, to the Mother Confessor,” the man says nervously, presenting a leather pouch. It easily fits in Kahlan’s palm. “She told me if I didn’t, she would slaughter my family while they slept.”

Kahlan’s eyes widen and she quickly opens it. A small but heavy arrowhead nearly tumbles through her fingers, and with it comes a flood of dangerously sharp emotion. This small object was once a breath away from piercing her heart. She looks up to the worried man. “She wouldn’t have killed them. Once she might have, but not anymore. What was the message?”

“It’s simply a place,” he says. “There’s an inn, next to the blacksmith, in Stonebrook. She waits for you there.” He lowers his voice suddenly, as if sharing a secret most dangerous. “If I may, Mother Confessor, I would bring the entire Home Guard with you. Heartless, that one seems, no matter what you say.”

Kahlan nearly smiles at that and calls for the porter to escort him away with her thanks—and a needless promise of his family’s safety.

“Who is it that sends for you?” Dennee asks curiously.

Kahlan gazes at the hard metal in her palm as it warms from her touch. “She needs me,” she says distractedly, already planning her journey. She could ride through the night and be in Stonebrook by dawn. “I have to leave, Dennee. Will you take my place?”

“Of course,” Dennee says, reassuringly taking one of her hands in her own. “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. A few days.” Looking away from Dennee, her voice falters. “Maybe…longer.”

****

Exhausted and travel-weary, Kahlan finds Cara fast asleep in a small room bathed in faint morning light. She lowers the hood on her unassuming traveling dress and places her heavy pack by the door. The sound draws a deep breath and sigh from Cara, but nothing more. Kahlan kneels by the bedside, stroking Cara’s hair from her brow until she wakes. “You’re here,” Cara murmurs in a voice heavy with sleep, looking at her with no small amount of guilt. With that, Kahlan knows there is no real urgency, no one in danger—it’s a relief, but brings new worry instead.

“Not long ago you would’ve woken the moment my hand touched the door,” Kahlan says, offering a small smile.

“I haven’t been sleeping,” Cara says. She looks guilty about that, too. Kahlan doesn’t need to ask her to explain.

“It’s only been four months,” she says gently.

Cara is silent for a moment. “Longer,” she says.

Kahlan just nods in understanding. “Could you sleep more? Now?”

“You rode through the night,” Cara guesses with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Kahlan doesn’t answer, instead stripping her things and sliding into the bed. She is tired and fully intended to take rest in Cara’s arms, but Spirits help her, her heart is not the only part of her that missed Cara. A touch of lips to skin becomes a little more.

****

“What about Benjamin?”

Cara stiffens as she sets down her cup, not sure how much she can tell Kahlan without hurting her—he had been a distraction for Cara, and he fulfilled that purpose admirably. The inn’s tavern is nearly empty just before midday, but travelers and locals alike are slowly filling the tables around them. While Kahlan is safe from notice with her dark hood up, they’ve taken a space near the back regardless. “I hadn’t spoken to him for weeks before I left,” she answers at length.

“For weeks,” Kahlan repeats quietly. Initial relief, likely due to having avoided infidelity, turns to something else as she looks down and holds her own cup a little tighter. “What happened?”

“He asked me if I would ever truly be his, and I told him the truth. And that was that.”

Kahlan’s smile is a little guilty and a little sly. “He should’ve known better than to ask a Mord-Sith such a thing.”

Cara just nods and tries to keep her voice steady. “What about your mate? Are you with child?”

“No. Cara, I never took a mate. I think…I wanted you to feel better, about Benjamin.”

She stares at Kahlan until the small shock gives way to her own relief. She is not sure what to say, afraid that such emotion would be too visible. When Kahlan hesitantly offers her hand, palm up on their table, Cara takes it firmly.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” Kahlan says, “but I still want you to know that whatever you were with him, it’s alright.”

Cara nods at their joined hands then, looks fearlessly at Kahlan, and says, “This is only ever for you, Kahlan. He never had this.”

****

There is a single shaft of bright moonlight falling where Cara pushes open the window on its hinge. The rush of cool night air is a boon to her bare skin, and she leans idly against the sill as she looks out over dark buildings and streets. It is habit that has her eyes checking for movement indicative of a threat, as if she is keeping watch over a camp in the wilderness. As if she is guarding someone.

A stray dog, almost wolflike, lopes across a deserted street before fading into a black alleyway, and all Cara can think is that she shouldn’t have left Richard alone. But if it was so easy to do exactly that, especially with Darken Rahl’s loyalist faction still securing their hold over D’Hara, maybe his protection is better left to true Mord-Sith—a title she can no longer claim.

Sheets rustle behind her, followed by the sound of bare feet padding on wood floor. Then Cara is enveloped in warmth as lithe arms fold around her front and soft breasts press to her back. She closes her eyes, because her memories and her imagination did not do justice to how this feels. “Still not sleeping,” Kahlan observes in a whisper.

“I am cursed,” Cara explains. It’s close enough to the truth to count.

“And how many days will it take me to lift this curse?”

“I was vague about the length of my absence.”

Kahlan hesitates. “As was I,” she admits.

“Then how many nights do we have coin for?” Cara wonders.

“I brought more provisions than gold,” Kahlan says, wrapping a sheet around her shoulders and stepping to Cara’s side. “Enough for a couple weeks of travel.” It takes Cara a moment to realize the meaning of her words.

“You want to leave.”

Kahlan looks out through the open window. “It would have to be somewhere no one knows my face. Far away from Aydindril. Maybe just a cabin, in the wild. We could find a place, Cara, for us.”

Cara has often thought of such a thing in her weakest moments, but she never hoped to hear such words from Kahlan. She stands stricken. Kahlan takes her pause as uncertainty and while her expression reveals nothing, pain and hope fight in her voice. “Things didn’t get easier this time, Cara. It was some weeks ago. I was sitting where I found you, outside my door…I’ve not been sleeping either. I decided that if I ever had the chance, I would ask you for this. I need you, Cara—your Lord Rahl doesn’t need you like I do.”

The image of Kahlan alone there, wanting her, is enough to tighten Cara’s throat, but she forces words through. “You once swore to me these feelings wouldn’t make us weak.”

“They haven’t,” Kahlan says softly. “But all of my strength is in you.”

Cara nods, because it is an acceptable explanation. “I think you have mine,” she says. Kahlan just raises her hand to Cara’s shoulder, her eyes searching Cara’s own, her gaze pleading.

“Will you come away with me? We could fall asleep and wake up together every morning. If you could hunt, I could cook. Or you could teach me to—”

“Kahlan, I will,” Cara interrupts. “I want that with you.” She seizes Kahlan and kisses her, hard, then regards her carefully. “I’ll be able to do that whenever I want,” she says in complete amazement, and Kahlan smiles.

“Nearly.”

“Winter is almost here,” Cara says, guiding Kahlan back to bed. “We’ll need to hurry, to find a place.”

“Then we should leave in the morning,” Kahlan says.

“Where will we be going, exactly?” Cara wonders. Kahlan just pulls her into the mess of sheets—they need to make love and they need to decide things, and there’s nothing stopping them from accomplishing both at once. For Cara, Kahlan’s touch is somehow sweeter for knowing she won’t be losing it anytime soon.

****

Dawn is splashing color across the eastern sky as the city of Stonebrook wakes around them. Cara and Kahlan pass the occasional sleepy villager in the streets, but they are mostly left alone with the chilly morning air and sharp, echoing sound of horseshoes on cobblestones. They’ve decided to head straight south, staying east of the mountains, then cut under them into Westland before the snows set in.

There is a current of near excitement at odds with the contentment Kahlan feels. She has spent years wanting something she thought she would never have, and now she has it after all. A life with Cara, her own life, just the two of them. She looks sidelong at Cara, offers a small smile, and Cara’s lips quirk before she looks down at her reins.

But there is also a tendril of unease that’s growing and twisting into something else as they ride. It isn’t long before Kahlan’s smile is gone and the feeling has settled into a heaviness in the pit of her stomach—guilt added to the familiar and powerful weight of her responsibility. The smaller street they are on crosses the main road directly ahead of them—if they keep going straight, it will lead south, like they planned. Left, toward D’Hara and the People’s Palace, and right, back to Aydindril.

She finds herself slowing her mount, delaying the coming moment, and Cara does the same. They will have to live their decision or abandon it within the next few heartbeats. When they pull their horses to a stop in the middle of the crossroads, she can’t tell who stopped first. “We can’t,” Cara sighs.

“I know,” Kahlan says quietly, her heart wrenching. “Cara, I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m not leaving you, either,” Cara says, her voice rasping with sudden emotion. “I won’t. So what now?”

The Mord-Sith is dangerously close to breaking down in the middle of the street, and Kahlan knows she will never forgive herself if that happens. “Richard,” she says suddenly as a thought comes to her, and Cara looks at her sharply.

“What about him?”

“I can help with your problem, in D’Hara. Who better to break a secret plot than a Confessor? All it will take is my hand around the right throat, whether it’s a soldier or commoner or Mord-Sith.”

Cara nods slowly. “So we’ll be together until he’s safe. Then we’ll be apart again.”

“No. If he’s safe he needs you that much less. When I return to Aydindril you could come with me.”

“Visiting Aydindril is one thing, but staying there…you know what I am, Kahlan. I can’t abandon Richard, not for good.”

“I don’t know,” Kahlan says desperately. “We’ll figure something out. We have time, now. I’ll think of something. Do you believe me?”

Cara looks at her, as serious as she’s ever seen her. “Yes,” she says.

“Good,” Kahlan says softly as they turn left, to head toward D’Hara, together. “I need you to.”


End file.
